Riotous Hourglass
by Foxes' Dreams
Summary: Scars are reversible. The cure is always foreseeable for those who wait patiently. Chase has finally found a sure and defiant reason to start rebuilding a changed version of himself and of his capturing memory. But, his newly-appeared daughter refused to let him brush near the macabre and somber visions without overcoming their effect. Sequel to "Ticking Clock"
1. Chapter 1 - 5 to 9

Chapter 1 – 5 to 9

T.V. Show: House MD

Pairing: Chase canon, Major Chase/Cameron

Author: Foxes' Dreams

Summary: Scars are reversible. The cure is always foreseeable for those who wait patiently. Chase has finally found a sure and defiant reason to start rebuilding a changed version of himself despite all the tormenting past secrets that haunt his capturing memory. But, his newly-appeared daughter refused to let him brush near the macabre and somber visions without overcoming their effect. Sequel to "Ticking Clock".

* * *

 _Love is like an hourglass, heart filling up as the brain empties." - Jules Renard_

Shadows rested quietly under the breezeless sky, the shiver of the dawns passed fragrantly down the city, the silver silence of the night fading at that early hour. The arising sun made mellow gold of all the air, the sky was growing ensaffroned with the indescribable hue that heralds days.

The atmosphere seemed somehow lazy, dull and brooding, even though the living beings looked relentless and changeless. All the awoken people moved heavily, the tranquility of the previous slumber still lingering on their closing eyelids.

The urban noise was still to erupt, the quiet stillness oddly unfitting for the enormous city. A haze of surreal energy transpired throughout the humans as hours passed by, the epicenter of work crowning in the close area. The walking crowds looked desolate, only the calm bright spirits giggled with anticipation because all the carefree and young creatures were on the verge of stepping back in the campus, as a new chapter in their lives began.

Ashley prepared intensely for that particular moment, running incoherently across the small flat quickly and gracefully, only with a subdued sense of provocateur pace lacing her movement. The watery sunlight cradled her golden curls, quickly enveloping her in a spell of aromatic warmness. She gathered all her scribbled, finished papers, stuffed them indolently in a figure-themed, dark green handbag and strode energetically to the door, only to find herself reaching for a distant pause, wishing silently that time wouldn't be so rambunctious.

The large-limbed, dazzling girl was almost tactically rushing, a bit of brief, unconvincing whimpering came to her senses as she found herself completely breathless, a painful rhythm of inhaling and exhaling attacking her chest. Her style of organizing was too brusque; the cream-colored silk shirt she wore was dancing on the frigid wind and sending shivers down her spine, only amplifying her bloating distress.

Her face was vividly flushed, obscurely blotchy as she made her way towards the entrance, feeling strangely insecure as though any misstep might plunge her back into a consequential conflict. Her crumbling image had definitely transformed, into someone paradoxically softer and harder, a rather regression settling in her mind.

She ignored that sickening thought which was turning in a maze of questions, of weighing odds. The dizzying sensation passed eventually, even though for a moment it seemed fittingly, suddenly jolted by a wave of adrenaline. Ashley entered the majestic building ominously; still flinching imperceptibly at the mention that time never stands still.

After hours of intense study, Ashley headed reluctantly to the cafeteria, her behavior was tender, lessen, not even strict. The steaming hot food tickled her developing appetite, a vigorous momentum of fervor cursing down her slim torso. After a few delicious bites, she spotted Stefan and Adrian coming towards her isolated table with a few long strides. Their friendliness was compelling, proving to be an essential virtue in that tumultuous phase of her life.

They both witnessed her becoming much wiser and less skittish; she seemed capable instead of subdued decisions.

The quick-tempered girl watched them intently, her facial expression betrayed only sympathy, combined with a comradely mockery, all her momentary demeanor shimming in her light-blue eyes. Most of her steady glimpses showed her constructed secrecy, all her expressions ready to escape the warm cage of her mouth. Ashley displayed herself as dismaying eagerness which never surprised the boys, they were rather anxious to comply with the surprising shifts of the situation.

"Well, new bag! I wonder from whom is this little gift," Stefan hummed appreciatively for a second, before allowing the palpating silence to lengthen.

"Can you blame Chase? He's trying to recuperate all the time he's lost," Ashley ditched back, a hunger of possessiveness flaming instantly her irises.

"No, but I can blame you for not calling him 'dad'," Stefan replied eagerly, a formless dread and despair lacing all the pronounced syllables, as he saw his friend's pent-up tolerance being repressed. Obviously, he sensed her overwhelming fear, conquering even the most remote parts of her brain, and installing as a pressure of accumulated misgivings.

"You know such things come in time. It's barely been two months. And plus, this bag was his during residential years," The petite blonde answered simply, restraining the rising storm of defensive words.

"I think it matters to him. You said yourself it was his lifetime goal to have a child," Adrian said leisurely, feeling the environment catching a solemn and awful quietude.

"Fine, I'll do it! Congrats, musketeers, you duo has just won," Ashley replied ultimately, replacing the scars of rancor and remorse with a joking attitude.

"Hard day?" The nerdy, boyish person asked, vainly trying to change the subject in order to suppress a deepening sadness.

"Short hours for me," Ashley answered purposefully quick, sending a bolt of unreal, royal arrogance in their direction.

The two boys huffed loudly, a look of tiredness buffeting both of their faces, while their backs instantly bent, and their veins were attacked by shafts of wavering courage. "There are times when I wonder why I haven't signed up in the mathematics-informatics class," Stefan confessed, mirroring the smiling incarnation of self-esteem.

"Lucky me, in this case," Ashley chirped adorably, feeling the spell of a deathless dream in her pores, imaging a future career. Just as she was mustering a shy, but satisfied grin, the phone which was previously still, rang loudly, evoking a wave of curiosity. "I have to meet him in twenty minutes. See you later!" The dynamic girl said, rushing to gather her things and to usher herself from the obnoxious crowd.

They watched her drift away from them, without adding something vital, as though she was utterly eager to leave. Still, the stridden discord was mocking both their moods, since Ashley's bonding was occurring at an alarming speed.

"I really hope this guy has serious intentions about being her father. I don't think Ashley can take another letdown in the near future," Stefan explained, breaking the momentary silence, and nurturing a suspicion of secret malevolence.

"I don't see him bad-willed. He's just as eager and clumsy as Ashley to get a whole family," Adrian sustained convincingly, the timely effusion of lasting friendship motivating him to defend his friend.

"Let's hope you are right," Stefan deadpanned, looking utterly consumed by a plastic doom.

"Oh come, Stefan, skip the melodrama! Why would he do this otherwise?" The shorter masculine figure inquired rhetorically.

"For vengeance, maybe?" Stefan shot back just as forceful and bittersweet, feeling propelled by a vast contradiction.

"Towards her mother?" Adrian debated, feeling the tumult in his heart subsiding in front of an unrealistic expectation. He received a nod of approval and continued his deliberately motivating speech. "I highly doubt that. Ashley told me they barely talk, only agreed on custody terms," He said calmly, exposing the unmasked batteries of his gloriously gray eyes.

Stefan remained painfully silent, locked in a veneer of realization. He was still spurred to doubt this entire alarming scenario, but found a light trace of hope as he considered paternal love as the main bonding factor.

* * *

The velvet of the cloudless sky turned progressively darker, and the stars magnificently more luminous. Ashley had been used to bearing annoying, peril-sourced silence since little age, as her mother's job became an inflammable, overmastering pit, ready to engulf her entirely.

Just as in a round of inexpressible realization, time passed and managed to imprint its power on all the living souls. For the little lass, the notion of silence and missed communication drastically changed, shifting from sorrow to a delightful memory.

With scribbled, handwritten notes and pages of decipherable, labyrinthine theory, Ashley was sinking into endless study, feeling the every pulsation and throbbing of her intellect. It seemed like the wheel of her thought turned in the same, desolate groove, but she was motivated to overcome that syncope of ideas.

A miraculous, tiny flutter of movement determined to escape the deep haze of stress. It was a casual, light peck dropped right in the centre of her softly covered skull. Still, it had the necessary power to release a kind of exhilaration imprisoned in the subtle baiting of the small gesture.

"You can manage by yourself a few minutes until I send my fellows to do some analysis?" Chase asked, showing off the exquisite balance of his paternal skills.

"Of course. Chemistry isn't a mystery anymore since you taught me how to resolve all the problems," The blonde figure replied, conjuring a smile of large proportions.

There was a spendthrift grandeur in Chase's replying smile, an easiness slightly alien for him and moreover, a taste so kindly in its everlasting candor.

He walked through the plain, exquisite glass door to resume a work of excessive platitude, boredom compared to the poignant picture of his only daughter sitting in close proximity.

"What did the angiogram show?" He asked, his voice still catatonic in state of elation, through his veins coursing only pure, loving adrenaline. Willingly, Chase casually stole minuscule glances at her, thrilled to the depths of his being and shockingly never tired with a dull or listless fatigue.

"Nothing. We're back to where we started," Adams parroted suddenly on an accusing tone, spurting out words in a thronging haste.

"The patient has difficulty breathing. It could be a mild case of anaphylaxis, which was left untreated," Park said, occluding the diagnosis with a theory both unrealistic and mundane.

"Anaphylaxis wouldn't have disappeared when she stood upright. Pulmonary embolism?" Adams proposed, sounding amicably resilient, and convincingly concerned.

"It would have showed up in the X-ray. Here's noted she had paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnoea, it could easily lead to pulmonary compliance," Chase suggested, his answer seeming vastly dissimilar to the tangible reality.

"It doesn't explain the coughed blood. The pulmonary tissue isn't scarred enough to cause any hemorrhage," Adams contradicted, the little, independent thread of inquiry ran through the apex of her skull, but promptly died away.

Transformed into a bewildering medical mystery, the case proved to be a mosaic of turnings and unexpected, gathered pressure. "Pulmonary edema with small pleural effusions would explain all the symptoms," a small voice stated, submitting the random idea with scourging, good grace.

Three pairs of curious eyes turned in the direction of the hoarse, polarized voice, exactly where Ashley was sitting remorselessly, in the narrow doorway.

"It would actually make sense," Adams whispered, looking taken aback by the shifting tension and the ephemeral breakthrough.

Chase, with a passionate, overmastering pride, went to the petite girl's side and gently stroke her irresistible tangle of golden curls. "See who's got the brains?" He stated inattentively, lost in the misty of Ashley's person as though the most enchanting beauty was entrapped within her small pose. "Of course, that means she had cardiogenic pulmonary edema. Go, dope her with Furosemide and glyceryl trinitrate," Chase ordered forcefully, feeling the quick pulse of gain.

Still retreated in a nest of ardor, his soul merged on fire and was ultimately prepared to release a rising storm of questions.

* * *

Untouched by a ruthless spirit, but blessed by a marginal improvement, silence fell and forced unstudied depths of inquiries to come to the surface. Secrets keep great malice and should be avoided as much as possible. Chase's ardent lips wanted toss the visible and palpable wonderings out of himself, to unleash any trace of doubt or poisonous scenario.

"You did great. All the results are good and the method seems to be right," Chase said soothingly, vibrant with a surge of newly discovered affection and addictive protection.

Ashley hurriedly, ungracefully closed all the veiled books and locked her sea-blue eyes with his, trying to find richness and vigor of resource. "I'm so glad it's all done! You should have been a teacher, everything finally made sense," The petite girl said, adoringly pitched and lounged on the extensible chair to get a momentary, needed relief.

"Why did you want to find me?" Chase asked spontaneously, ultimately breaking the space of ethical trespass, the one compulsorily built to prevent malice from overcoming their senses. Voices that charmed the ears and echoed a subtle resonance in his soul told him to apologize and to forget, to move on and take advantage of the stillness.

Ashley parted her golden strands, wantonly and eagerly quick, a bolt of pain overwhelming her scalp. Her palms were covered by a sweet-flavored layer of nervous sweat, and she couldn't help a deep sigh from escaping her lips, bringing out the volcanic upheaving of imprisoned passion. "I needed you in my life. I needed to know the origin of my traits. I wanted to know everything, all the reasons. My friends told me to give up because I'll get hurt or disappointed. But, I wanted to know you," she confessed, a new sparking, glistening smudge was reflecting on her retina.

"I'm really glad you did. You turned my life upside down in a great way, I finally felt that love hasn't bypassed me completely," Chase responded, when all the profane voices were hushed and the music of the words didn't sound alien anymore in his ears. As he squeezed his daughter's hand tightly, reassuringly, the destiny whistled life away in perfect contentment.

"I couldn't have said this better," Ashley tried to muster, but her voice broke under the pang of realization.

"Nobody good enough to replace a father figure?" Chase asked, his tone sounding childishly curious, wrapped in an accessible mood.

"Mom married a guy while she was pregnant. Turned out to be a cheating jerk. After the divorce, he moved back to Chicago, but we stayed here in New York. It's weird how close we were and never knew each other," The tiny silhouette said, sincerely wrought out by the comical tragedy.

"Your mom even worked here a few months. I only knew she had a baby, I never saw you. One day, she fled away, and then we all heard that she got heartbroken and ran away. Still, I have never guessed she would just move to NY," Chase said, revealing an outstanding truth, worthy of being analyzed deeper, more profoundly.

"Anyway, she had a couple of boyfriends, who all endured things varying from biting to even being thrown out. I guess I knew they weren't fitted for a replacement," Ashley said easily, words meaninglessly being wrenched from their true significance.

Silence fell, as they both processed the capricious irony of fate which ultimately managed to keep them apart.

"But we met once," Ashley broke the uncomfortable stillness, with a vanquished and weary sigh. "At the restaurant, a day before I came to you. It's weird how I chose to look at you from all the table people," She confessed, seemingly deprived of any unnecessary shreds of anxiety.

"I took only a small glance at you. I tried to shut people put of my life after so many disappointments, but I couldn't help thinking about you that evening," Chase said, wrought out of any past emotion, infectious and splendidly dangerous. "I didn't even see Cameron walking before you, I thought you were just a stranger, obviously I was wrong," He said in addition, flushing crimson in his high cheekbones.

"Even a stranger can change your life in a definite way," Ashley said seriously, obviously influenced by the vivifying touch of geniality.

"A stranger who finally turned out to be a close relative," The adult diagnostician replied, with an urbanely plastic and versatile interest.

"Do you-" Ashley tried to muster, getting lost in the variously ramified and delicate channels of expression. "Do you regret not being here since the very beginning of my life?" She asked, knowing the treacherous implications of such a virile issue.

Chase took in a deep, steady breath. It was finally time to face his inner demons, his fatalistic fears.

"I regret not having been present in some of your major moments, to see how beautifully you've grown up," He started fearfully, covering the vast sweep of mellow distance. "But what matters is that we are here now, ready to start a new life together," He continued, his cheeks obviously furrowed with great, genuine purpose.

He needed the powerful, conducting impulse to transmit his comment of delightful flavor directly, without any physical obstacles. Chase grabbed her palm in a desperate attempt to prove his crystallizing intentions.

Ashley stared coldly, flabbergasted by the current play of emotions, vainly repeating the words in her unsettled mind. She already knew the answer, granted to the passages of affection he had previously shown.

"We just have a lifetime to build," She replied spontaneously, her words portraying exactly his mixed ideas, slightly distinguished from his exact ones, varying only the exquisiteness.

"And we'll make the most of it, I promise you," Chase said, plunging in the fathomless pit of enchantment.

He made a promise, one of epic proportions, to offer continuous love, supported by serene leisure and easiness.

Endowed by life and emphasis, he instantly knew he would dedicate his heart, in its entirety to the feathery-haired figure, restful and peacefully contented against his chest.

His long lost daughter found her way towards her respective paternal model, enticed irresistibly by the freedom of an open could finally alleviate their bleeding wound and cover, with classic graciousness, the part of flesh lacking from their erratically beating hearts.

 **Author's Note:** Finally here! So happy to be writing again about Ashley's adventures.

Isabel, Nayra, Andreza the much awaited sequel is here! ;)


	2. Chapter 2 - Three Stories

Chapter 2 – Three Stories

T.V. Show: House MD

Pairing: Chase canon, Major Chase/Cameron

Author: Foxes' Dreams

Summary: Scars are reversible; the cure is always foreseeable for those who wait patiently. Chase has finally found a sure and defiant reason to start rebuilding a changed version of himself despite all the tormenting past secrets that haunt his capturing memory. But, his newly-appeared daughter refused to let him brush near the macabre and somber visions without overcoming their effect. Sequel to "Ticking Clock".

* * *

 _Love is like an hourglass, heart filling up as the brain empties." - Jules Renard_

The old, decayed log, long softened by rot and spotted with moss, seemed to mark the imminent appearance of autumn, frigid and dusk-darkened. The damp, the whizzing chirr of thunders and the syncope of obscure flashes were kept at a considerable distance by the cozy, comforting environment of the enclosed hospital.

"She's just amazing!" Chase exclaimed forcefully, half-chocked by the paroxysm of adoration.

His high-pitched voice clearly disturbed the ultimate stillness of the cafeteria, bringing many pairs of eyes to judgmentally look in his direction. He, returned to Foreman, condensed into intimate speech, for minutes elaborating images of great significance.

"Man, I've never seen you so love struck before, let alone all the cases with babies in them," Foreman sneered laughingly, smiling with obvious acceptance. "I get you bonded with the kid really tightly?" He asked, giving the same civil rejoinder of ironic rebound.

"You kidding? She's practically my splitting image, interested in diagnosis and puzzles, and moreover, incredibly smart and kind," He only smiled with fatuous superiority, launching words naturally.

"Dude, I really need to say that it's the irony of fate, since you two look so alike. I bet that's why she wanted to meet you so badly," Foreman shambled away with speed the idea, pausing for a moment to be out-struck by the undeniable resemblance.

"It's okay if she comes to see some procedures on Career's Day?" Chase asked directly, changing the subject, so that he could avoid the vulgar prizes of life, mostly picturing Cameron.

"Yeah, sure. Keep an eye on her, though, not to get scared by your psych patient," The Dean of Medicine warned, discreetly silent, empty of further thought, only genuinely concerned.

"He'll have been discharged by then, if the treatment actually works. He's given us all headaches with constant complaining about heartburning or psychotic breaks," Chase admitted, clearly entangled in a paradox of caring and ignorance. "Ashley will be more than interested to see him since she resolved the case," He continued, rambling uncontrollably about the success of his daughter. His voice writhed in the grip of a definite apprehension and muffled by the constant chewing on an exotic salad.

"Come again?" Foreman inquired, losing the track of events and quaking on the verge of a bilious, contrary attack.

"Ashley found out the diagnosis for my patient. She pointed to pulmonary embolism and then the final diagnosis struck all of us," Chase said, his face obviously lit up by a glow of divine inspiration and resolve.

"How could she know that?" Foreman insisted on the matter, his stern gaze stiffening anew into gray, impersonal obstinacy.

"She is passionate about mysteries, both about computers or biological. And yes, her friends dragged her to watch countless medical shows," Chase clarified, his musing taking an anticipated and arbitrary twist.

"Man, she is the copy of you." The two adults bursted into iconic laughter, both of their minds becoming overfilled with past anecdotes. "Wait, friends or boyfriend?" Foreman teased, purposefully to create a basic, light atmosphere where his mate's paternal strength could be scattered into fits of agitation.

"She has two best friends, both guys known from the childhood, and they are just inseparable," Chase explained detailed, his masculine voice suddenly coaxing inflections of an immature being.

"Two?! She's playing her cards really well. I hope Cameron gave her 'the talk', otherwise it's all on you, bud," Foreman joked loudly, his conscience leaping to light and easiness, his brow growing knit and gloomy.

"Very funny, trying to scare me off with common things that other parents are afraid of. I'm off the hook for such duties since she's a teenager," Chase rectified, gloriously showing a matching grin while his ears sang with the vibrating intensity of the humor's secret existence.

Foreman just echoed his strong, extrovert attitude, his eyes reflecting a twinkle of reminiscent pleasantry, lost in the primrose path of old days.

"Speaking of it, Cameron's okay with her wandering nonstop around PPTH?" Foreman asked, sensitively touching a bundle of nerves, defective of any exterior, protective layer.

"Even if she has something to object, she hasn't said it out loud. I bet Ashley would have stayed either way, because she's so stubborn when she definitely wants something," Chase admitted, his gaze oddly full of unconquerably torn with inner conflict. Under the deep pressure, his small hands were trembling on the supported fork, looking vulnerably small and prehensible.

"That means she'll dedicate entirely to having an honest relationship with you and I feel you'll be soon wrapped around her little finger," Foreman replied, his impatient scorn expired as his heart rebuked him in front of such a thunderously tender appreciation.

Chase sipped one last overwhelmingly warm gulp of bittersweet coffee and his lips loosened in a furtively exultant and good-humored smile. "Gotta go, I have a surgery in thirty minutes," He announced promptly, receiving only an imperceptible nod in exchange, the fresh tides of intense thoughts hovering above both of their unsettled minds.

As Foreman watched him exit the over-saturated cafeteria, his shrewd gaze fixed appraisingly on his trace, his mood completely yielded and last illusions crumbled. He watched Chase metamorphosing into the incarnation of negativity, later reaching the self-destructive phase, and now he could only hope that the unexpected appearance would guarantee him self-esteem.

* * *

Ashley's soul was wrung with a sudden, wild homesickness since the moment she arrived at her shared place to be encountered by the transparent absence of her newly-found sibling.

Her torpid ideas awoke again, compressed by a single agony of prayer, until she would be granted freedom. Abominably humorous, her words became a jumble of syllables, all pleading and exquisitely languish.

"But, mom, please, I want to go, I've never been in the middle of a diagnostic department before," Ashley vainly tried to convince, her reasons growing stolid and unlashing.

"What happened to or tradition? You spent every Career's Day with me in the ER so far and you haven't ever complained," Cameron said, her voice insensibly becoming inquisitorial, and slightly accusing. She felt as though all her vagrant peace was trailing off brokenly after the big encounter. She had never planned such a glorious revelation, but destiny had decided contagiously opposite.

"Time changes. I have the opportunity to get to know my father better after long years when he was absent," The young girl proclaimed, rising warningly the tone, assenting in the precisely right terms.

"I still have the right as your mother to spend time with you as we used to," Cameron shot back, a crowning bitterness flowing in her veins while her lips pursued in defiant scorn.

"And we are spending time together. It's just one occasion, one skip, nothing that will affect us," Ashley pressed the issue further, herself disarming anger and rigid asperity.

"We're spending now, but in the years to come, maybe we won't have the chance to," Cameron almost shrieked in response, feeling the ground crumbling beneath her unsteady feet, ready to collapse in front of such an apocalyptic disclaim.

"We'll always find time to. We're mother and daughter and no one is going to change that and Chase knows how important my bond with you is," Ashley clarified, forcing a faint, quivering smile, filled with anxious incomprehension towards her mother's reluctance.

"Is he good with you?" Cameron asked suddenly, talking a good portion of oxygen in order to strangle a fierce tide of fear that welled up deep inside her. She had already anticipated the answer, speaking with sweet severity from the years when Chase's prompt and full attention was directed particularly to youngsters.

"He's brilliant, so attentive, he's truly fulfilling the image of a father I've long imagined," Ashley confessed, conscious of a tumultuous rush of sensations overwhelming her beating heart.

"Then that's all I'm asking for now," Cameron replied simply, bearing permanently the odds of co-parenting, clearly thriving sincerity.

"That means a yes?" Ashley asked eagerly, her pupils growing wide at the unconfirmed, but foreseen answer.

Cameron could only plaster a fragile nod before two girly, thin arms encircled her tightly, a posture demure and deeply appealing for their close relationship.

"Thank you so much! I promise nothing will drastically change," Ashley reassured, oppressed by an alive melancholy. "But it would be a good idea to talk to him again, maybe make an agreement to spend time together all three of us," She continued, planning a sheer superfluity of happiness, which would bring them in the symphony of family. Soar in the rosy space of contemplating, she could just let herself prey to that reverie.

"We'll see about that, too," Cameron replied simply, after a long pause.

Her arms were stilled around Ashley, enveloping her in a mantra of protectiveness. Softened by the solicitude of untiring love coming exactly from Chase, she virtually considered the option.

She suffered, she abolished normalcy, but the idea of recreating a united family was curiously engaging.

* * *

Outside, a metamorphosis was occurring; the lichen growth of the low-lying boulders and the moss encircling the trunk of the tress could easily be examined as though the nature was resurrecting itself. The damp air, the gigantic water-laden leaves that were constantly dripping, the storms coming with monotonous regularity, the very earth itself cloying after the shallowest shower, were all long disappeared.

Some exquisite refinement could be found in Ashley's architecture of the brain as she seized the moment, looking for an open gate to grant her access and freedom to speech.

All four of them were smitten, sorely solitary souls, standing in the very far and dimly lit corner of the amphitheater, where the images played seemed to be only an incoherent paraphernalia of flashes and vivid colors.

"She accepted!" Ashley whispered eagerly, breaking the solemn silence, threatening to pervade the settling monotony.

"Your mother is letting you to spend Career's Day with Chase?" Stefan asked rhetorically, feeling contradictory skirmishes and retreats of conscience. He scooted a little, to minimize the area separating their exhausted bodies, slowly engaging significance from the thicket of words.

"No way!" Adrian shrieked uncontrollably, feeling the anguish of sharp and palpable surprise.

"Pay the money, man!" The other masculine voice commanded promptly, as he stood calm, behind a mask of perfected, eternal dignity.

"Dammit, I should not have dealt with you!" Adrian said acidly, stilled by inward, succulent protest.

"Wait! Did bet on this?" The petite blonde asked, as she regarded sternly both of her amicable acquaintances out of her stonily flint-blue eyes.

"10 bucks, easy money for me," Stefan responded, seemingly wrapped in a veil of victory and undeniable triumph.

"She really surprised me. I mean I told her about spending time together, all three of us and she looked quite calm, almost accepted the proposal without blinking," Ashley clarified, pouring out the opulence of full recognition that didn't fail to amaze her entirely.

"That's weird! But, as we know your mom, she can be really oscillating," The sensitive, cracking masculine voice confessed, attributing the person in cause a portrait of meaningless, facile traits.

"It's not odd at all. Only one explanation makes sense and I know you're thinking about it," Stefan suggested as ultimate theory, nourishing a previously irresponsive dream.

Two pairs of casually arranged eyebrows shot up, lingering in that position for many leisure seconds as they restrained the pressure of unleashed fury and wild desire of knowledge.

"She still has feelings towards your father. And now, she has the opportunity to get him back," Stefan finalized, setting a new, refreshening perspective of the events.

"Are you hearing what you say? They don't even talk to each other!" The other teenager boy sustained, cataloging all the insanity as irrelevant with a defiant tone.

"Okay, slow down, guys. Stefan might be right. I mean, who keeps reminders of a person she desperately tries to avoid unless she has a different opinion?" Ashley jumped back into the conversation, sensing the scrupulous morality of conduct as light entered even the most remote parts of her brain.

"A masochist, maybe?" Adrian replied jokingly, taking advantage of the sensuous enjoyment of the outward show.

"This is not a coincidence," The irrevocably trustful, feminine person concluded, a seizing, serious lurked in the depth of her eyes as the plan repeated over and over in her head and catching a contour of pure sufficiency.

In the obscure lights and jumble of chaotic syllables, she could only plaster a timid smile that blurred into a wide grin, serenity dancing across her ardent lips.

* * *

Despite the steady dryness, the wind was carrying a scent of winter jasmine, which grew colder and colder, revealing the pastoral scene of awakening autumn. The deep shadow of a gigantic, imperial maple tree seemed to conquer the earthy surface, suppressing all the vital flashes of warmth and obscure light.

The nature seemed to be abstracted into a certain implication of sorrow and grief, misunderstood and capricious for every alive human being.

"Exactly as you ordered, pancakes with two pieces of butter, no honey," Chase proclaimed proudly, a calmness settling on his spirit as he joined his daughter at one isolated table. Some timid rays penetrated the closed blinds, providing a much needed camp of vision to all the occupants of the deserted cafeteria.

"You already know me too well," Ashley responded sincerely, suddenly aware of the affective implication her words had released. She clumsily arranged the wrinkles on her white blouse, letting a childish belief in its own impeccability enter her veins. "So, what's the plan for today? I really need to see something spectacular to brag about at school," She asked, a covertly eager voice lacing the words.

"You'll definitely see a lot of fascinating things for the school report and gossip," Chase answered, a satisfaction perfectly angelic coming into his features. "First of all, we are going to do some clinic rounds, finish a short laboratory biopsy, and finally move on to a concrete diagnosis," He scheduled tactfully, creating an air of vigor and vitality that would make this visit a memorable one.

"Sounds perfect!" Ashley exclaimed playfully, a constant stream of rhythmic images flashed before her eyes.

As they ate in silence, with completely no syllables mustered, they realized the magnitude of the bond, claiming utterance in their hearts.

The day passed at a regular, rigorous pace, leaving spaces for the scientific mysteries to entwine with the aphasic routine. A dandified figure of adoration overwhelmed Chase's smoothest features in every moment Ashley's excitement caught impressive measures.

After completing the dauntless campaign of easy platitudes, they were standing at the nurses' station, relaxing and reminiscing the oblivion of past actions.

"Can you imagine how many times people asked what does Australia look like?" Ashley asked comically, motivated to enlighten the colorless, passing moments.

"I assume that's because you pronounce most of the words with a deep accent," Chase responded, feeling a deliciously tantalizing sense of pride and an exuberant smirk marked his lips.

"Exactly. And it's so weird, since I have never heard someone speaking with accent around me," The young person added, truly exposing a detached segment of life.

"These things can be genetically transmitted. You're obviously my girl," Chase claimed possessively, tracing his palm around the middle section of her forearm as his cheshire grin widened.

"That doesn't change the fact that I want to see the whole country," Ashley proposed, a faint accent of reproach marking the sentence.

Chase meditated intensely and then let out a fiery exclamation of wrath. "Here's a deal. On your summer vacation, I'll take you to see the land of kangaroos, dingoes and surf."

"You're just amazing! Now I have something to be anxiously waiting for," Ashley shrieked, becoming a figure full of contentment and balanced stare. "When are we going to see the patient?" She inquired, continuously pacing and keeping a glassy expression of inattention.

"Right after I complete the whole paperwork," Her father answered, promptly conserving his collected demeanor.

"What does this guy have? I really can't read your handwriting," Ashley asked again, more amusingly and openly this time.

"Very wise for your age, aren't you?"He asked rhetorically, and pinched the side of her face, causing a flame of scarlet to spread swiftly, diagonally across her cheeks."The patient presented in the ER with hugely swollen feet, and jugular venous pressure, that meant he had a serious case of hepatomegaly," He explained in detail, measuring the ghastly whiteness overspreading on her face.

"Which means?" Ashley asked, feeling a sense of loss in front of the labyrinthine terms.

"The excessive swell of the liver. And because of you, we discovered the pulmonary edema and not the pulmonary embolism as we thought," Chase continued his speech, not ever ignoring the charming glamour when such difficult terms were spoken.

"So what does he have finally?" Ashley wanted to know ultimately, giving a glance of extraordinary meaning.

"He has cardiogenic pulmonary edema, but with continuous positive airway pressure he got healed," Chase presented pompously as if he was the generation of men lavishly endowed with geniality.

"So, what's the big enigma about him?" The petite blonde concealed, an exuberance of ambition marking her question.

"He is a certified psycho and barely let us touch him," The physician responded simply, impersonally. "He's restrained to bed now, so he shouldn't give us any headache," He clarified, as he witnessed Ashley's mask of calmness crumbling furiously into ashes.

They walked in distressing silence to the reserve where the patient was previously organized to stay. A golden haze of pensive light was illuminating the chamber which was oddly empty.

"Where's the patient?" Ashley inquired, a great pang of confusion gripping her heart.

"He ought to be here, since he isn't scheduled to undergo any procedure," Chase stated, a great process of searching and shifting erupting in his mind.

Just as a sudden, grim prophecy, a crowd of combined people, medical staff and innocent, ordinary citizens mingled in the same hysterical group, fatally threatened by one, single pointed weapon.

Chase moved Ashley behind his back and gripped her terribly shaking hand, as the exposed situation turned out to be a deprecating horror and unleashed incredulity.

"Everyone on the right wall, face me and don't even dare to say a word," The harassing attacker commanded, his gruesome voice startling compunction and anxiety of sorrow to rush in all the captives' bloodstream.

A harvest of barren regrets started in Chase's heart as he fought dearly to protect his closest sibling, feeling the haunting and murmuring insecurity taking over him completely. A helpless anger simmered in him as he reviewed the plot of past stabbing.

A heavy oppression was in the air, and seemingly, a hint of death in the icy tension sending a gush of salty water in the corner of Ashley's eyes.

 **Author's Note:** I know, the cliffhanger! Keep in mind that this story has a happy ending! :)

Andreza, "the talk" and kangaroos both mentioned!


	3. Chapter 3 - Lockdown

Chapter 3 – Lockdown

T.V. Show: House MD

Pairing: Chase canon, Major Chase/Cameron

Author: Foxes' Dreams

Summary: Scars are reversible; the cure is always foreseeable for those who wait patiently. Chase has finally found a sure and defiant reason to start rebuilding a changed version of himself despite all the tormenting past secrets that haunt his capturing memory. But, his newly-appeared daughter refused to let him brush near the macabre and somber visions without overcoming their effect. Sequel to "Ticking Clock".

* * *

 _Love is like an hourglass, heart filling up as the brain empties." - Jules Renard_

Leaves used to hang limp in the gray, damp and obstinate air, but in the moment of brooding anxiety, the water disappeared in a mist of intrusive pressure. A cool, restful, shady world with lights barely filtered through the metaphorical walls of authentic intensity of inky blackness, cutting mercilessly through vascularized flesh.

A distraught, thinly-formed nurse, an occasional female passer-by trapped in the hallucination of aggression, alongside with her husband, incarnated as the fusion of remarkable pitiful sorrow, got trapped in the dazzling and rare whirl of captivity, where all of them swept into oblivion by the possibility of mortal consequences.

Ashley's tears furiously refused to escape the orbits of eyes, but a sinking, panicky desolation and disillusionment claimed her imminent drop of willpower and caused her to remain catatonic, barely sheltered by her father's tensed back.

Chase's face shifted to atrocity, a quiver of resistance restraining him to act immediately. A rhythmical torrent of eloquent threatens bolted him into an attempt of saving the situation.

"Please calm down! There is no need to endanger so many lives," The adult started cautiously, taking the proper steps to avoid a catalytic, inexplicable reaction. He could feel his blood being drained from his upper arm, as Ashley's grip intensified, forming ceaselessly an imaginary shield which would keep away skepticism with prompted rebellion.

"Really doc? People need to suffer as I do," The patient replied, in an engrave tone, a sentiment of incoherent distrust and repression lacing his accentuated syllables.

"Depression and sufferance can be healed with therapy. That's why you've been admitted, to receive the treatment you need," Chase tried again, a shiver of apprehension crisped his skin momentarily. A slight movement of incredible dissent was tried, approaching the epicenter of disaster and leaving behind Ashley's prehensible form.

"That's what you, doctors, do all the time! Make promises that are always unreal," The patient shouted suddenly, exposing a smile of subtle, sickened charm.

"Treatments take time. Maybe they're not quickly effective, but they can -" Chase insisted, aware of his implications and of his shuffling compromise between defiance and prostration.

"Shut up!" The violent attacker shrieked loudly, amplifying the sense of insidious plea coming from the kidnapped people.

"Please leave him alone. There's no way you can negotiate with him," Ashley's soft voice intervened, showing off a soft intonation of profound sorrow. A solemn, gray expanse crept into her thought, and was determined to retrieve her closest sibling from the contradictory exchange of lines completely unharmed and tenebrously alive.

"See, even the hot babe has more brains than you do," The gunman insinuated, an impassive and breathless hatred hanging over his deepening bilious mind. The soft suspicion of effects seized Ashley greedily and her eyes widened uncontrollably at such infamous prompt.

"Watch your mouth when you're talking about my daughter!" Chase threatened immediately, a gush of feral rage possessing his mind and a neutral indolence overwhelmed his rational judgment.

"And what are you going to do? Since you seem so helpless right now," The patient angered into words, his sharp and incisive voice mixing fatally perfect with the gun point tracing frigid, scar-like marks along Chase's muscular jaw. "Sit down! Don't make me force you!" He ordered, his sonorous and stolidly despairing attitude trespassing the limits of over-extended normalcy.

Chase sat down with an arrhythmic thump, and wrapped his arms tightly around the petite blonde, his own attitude of bravery crumbling into ashes, welcoming the stifling sensation of pain and excruciating suspense.

An odd kind of stunned incredulity conquered the occupants' entire mind as they passed the state of sullen self-denial.

A soundless, mocking breeze crept into the room and had the power of a faint whisper, leaving a spacious sense of amplitude of utter possibilities.

A staccato cough coming from the abnormal person interrupted the flow of stillness, more goose bumps arising on people's delicate layers of skin.

They needed to play and to win in order to free themselves in unaltered states.

* * *

After a seemingly eternity of resolutions, doubts and indecisions, peace and self-conduct settled on Foreman's spirit, and he instantly became aghast at his own previous helplessness.

His serving attitude had become territorial, almost incredibly possessive, agitated with violent and contending emotions. He was managing PPTH with highly ranked quality skills, and all his gift of serene mobility was finally put into practice.

His office was oddly large, unfitting to his ideal of retreating in lesser lights, where everything was embroiled and mussed with age. The swift shifting of pages had been the only current flow of noises which was brutally interrupted by a jumble of chaotic steps.

"Dr. Foreman-" A pleading, young nurse began to speak, her hope of discreet reticence was clearly ripped to shreds.

"I said I didn't want to be disturbed," Foreman snarled, as a disagreeable headache clouded his immediate judgment.

"You don't understand," The nurse insistent suspiciously loud, her words could be recognized as spontaneous and instinctive. "The psychopath Dr. Chase was treating has had a seizure and now, he has taken some people in captivity," She continued, delivering the news of direful calamity.

"Is he armed?" Foreman inquired, an acute note of distress could be found in his voice.

"He has a gun of small caliber," The nurse admitted, confessing all the witnessed events with grave vacuity.

"Run to the security department and ask them to evacuate everyone except for the ER, intensive care and emergency operating rooms. I'll be announcing the special forces," Foreman commanded powerfully, an air of deep, stern and irredeemable gloom pervading his trust.

The young attendant strode off, using every mustered drop of propelling energy whilst Foreman quickly contacted the needed enforcement, his own voice vibrating uncontrollably.

An antagonist just destroyed his equilibrium, and with an air distinctly critical and a silent prayer, he announced the service about the present condition.

With an attitude of inimitable, scrutinizing detachment, Foreman started the operation, his mind unconsciously drifting to Chase and his daughter, both caught in the lethal trap, in the good-natured, forestalled hostility.

* * *

The acrimony of the situation was hilariously tragic, laced by an ephemeral fragility, and by a supernatural force capable of culminating lives in utter sorrow. An attack of peculiar virulence and malevolence was hanging above their head, irreversibly increasing the condemning pressure.

Chase was sitting on the frigid, hardwood floor, muttering an effusive air of well-bred cynicism and pessimism. He was standing stoically, but his concern drifted to his daughter, shaking like an autumn leaf and resembling an easy prey to the powers of folly.

"You have a problem with doctors, we got it. Then, release everyone else because they aren't guilty. We need to figure this out by ourselves," Chase proposed an effective plan, displaying an expression of rare and inexplicable personal will.

The attacker laughed drily, emphasizing dripping sarcasm."And what? You think that without propaganda, people will change something?"

"Things can change if they are taken calmly. Stop this before SWAT comes barging in here, and make a complaint," Chase clarified, with an ingratiating, insatiable hunger escaping this limited situation.

"They'll just listen to me like idiots and assure me everything will be fine even if it isn't," The patient stated calmly, exposing his long buried and intensively growing dissatisfactions.

"Crisis cases were resolved by peaceful negations. Have faith in humanity, please," Chase pleaded awkwardly, his impenetrable screen of foliage crumbling and leaving him bare and unarmed in front of such a serious threat.

"You are such a dreamy, doc. World is much meaner than you think," The attacker announced bitterly, his impersonal and slightly ironic tone coming at full speed.

"Not everyone is, you have to face that. It isn't all about negativity," Chase tried vainly to reassure, an inarticulate echo of his longing ringing deafly in his soul.

The gunman's ground seemed to shift atrociously, and a cord of maximum sensitivity snapped irremediably. "Really? Then why everyone labels me as 'psycho' or 'crazy'?"

"That's just absurd! No one has the right to judge you and even if you have a problem, it's good you sought help," Chase said, obviously raising his voice to get the desired effect. He tried to fight and annihilate the inexplicably and uselessly cruel caprice of fate. In the corner of his eye, he witnessed Ashley curled up in a sigmoid form, utterly spent by the river of mixed tears and nervous sweat.

"Help didn't help," The patient stated simply, showing off an incursion of the loud, the vulgar and the meretricious.

"Help always helps if you pay attention to it," Chase replied in a blink, consciously contrasting his ideas.

"Don't you dare accuse me of being uncooperative? You have no idea how's like to be in my head," The attacker screamed, losing control of his limbs and gesturing wildly, uncontrollably with his charged weapon. Exhales of petrifying constrictions escaped everyone's lips.

"I can never be in your head, but I can enter it if you let me," Chase prompted, mastering the plot of manipulating and destroying the open wit and recklessness of behavior.

"To wreck it even more?" The gunman asked rhetorically.

"Be serious! I'll never intentionally do something to hurt my patients!" Chase answered, an obscure thrill of alarm ringing in his mind as the patient's demeanor deprecated to despair.

"Shut up, liar!" He ordered, pointing his gun exactly in Chase's heated center of erratic heartbeats. You and your staff are well under standards," He attacked verbally continuously, an oppressive, overburdening sense of blinding rage creeping in all his veins.

Ashley's vehement sobs steadied for a second, the naked, raw, primal taste of death taking over her. The uncomfortable premonition of fear and allurements of panic motivating her to stand up and say what was needed.

"Why are you doing this? Deep down, you know it's not true what you said since I read your records and there are no previous complaints," Ashley threw the obvious truth out of her ardent lips with uncharacteristic, horrifying grace. Her arm was draped over Chase's chest, obviously defying his absolutement and incomprehensible threat. "Then, why are you screwing with us?" She asked, growling low in her throat, as an odd fervor of salvation crept into her unerring perception.

"Just to have fun, you little kid," He answered, glorifyingly and sickeningly exposing the words as though he conquered dominance.

A shrill, animalistic cry and the unredeemed, rough noise of an active bullet mixed alongside with an unsuspected moral obtuseness as the patient insensitively pulled the trigger.

A day peered forth with its rays light, but met with darkness and metallic taste of blood as it reached Ashley's lying body.

* * *

The gun shot noise came as a throng sensation, shifting the unsteady grounds and amplifying the panicky pressure. The deserted hallways shook with incredulous magnitude, bewildering the immediate apocalypse of pretense of something erratically shallow occurring.

Foreman's facade of self-confidence and effective conducting was starting to evaporate since the startling echo of the weapon being intentionally fired reported the idea of consensual harm, possibly engrave and life threatening.

Waiting for the summons of eternal silence or brusque rain of bullets, he let himself prey to the darkest thoughts, beaming with unpleasant quivering. He was restrained behind the security forces, in front of the hospital, unable to seize or document about the flamed, beaconing situation.

"Foreman!" A strangled voice demanded behind him. "What happened? I heard about it when your patients got transferred to New York Mercy," Cameron arrived promptly, only to find the earthy resurrection of disagreeable, poised hallucinations.

"We have a psychic patient who had a crisis, took some hostages and seems quite feral about all this," Foreman explained briefly, avoiding the paraphernalia of acting, including the epicenter of the unfolding, quickly-blithe with abnormal bliss action.

"Where is my daughter?" Cameron asked, her voice low and borne with a faculty of forced compromise. Her fiery maternal instincts overwhelmed her and she quickly started browsing for a solution, lit by the virtue of impassioned will.

"An ICU nurse and a couple waiting to be admitted were lockdowned for sure," Foreman stated, avoiding and consciously masking the uplands of his knowledge about the captives.

"Foreman! That doesn't answer my question!" Cameron shouted, chafed at the restraints imposed on her.

"Chase and Ashley were the first ones reported missing," Foreman announced grimly, like he had already abducted the optimistic scenario of the upcoming destiny.

"Were there any gun shots?" Cameron asked, her tone already broken and shattering, but still fed the masochistic desire to prepare for the worst.

"Only one so far," Foreman delivered the news sternly, cleaned of lying, impending layers.

He watched as Cameron processed the information with a certain frigid and deferential surprise and soon became inconsolable, a weeping form as she broke in a stupendous roar upon the shuddering air.

She felt as though the sky itself had collided on her, leaving her breathless and vulnerable in front of the caprice of fate. Conjuring up scenes of reckless horror, she started hoping with crafty ambition that two hearts will by-pass death, instead of only, smitten one.

* * *

The cozy, airy environment of a local café seemed to intriguingly silent, obviously deficient in tender or affectionate welcoming impulses. The steam waltzing in the air was quickly, mystically disappearing, leaving space for only some frigid, consequential, unannounced tension.

"Daddy's little girl isn't answering her phone," Stefan proclaimed, after vainly trying to contact her for several times. His mind drifted into the fading fancy of enchantment and his voice betrayed pure malice.

"Maybe she's too busy getting all spoiled and treated with gifts," Adrian said, not even pondering the implications of his words as his gaze was averted in the direction of the crowded street, stopping the endlessly shifting moods.

"Do you think she's changing?" The taller boy inquired, his attitude becoming shockingly serious and lucid.

"No. She is just being happy, let her live the moment," Adrian replied, enduring the amusing contempt coming from his friend, endowed with emphasis on the action.

"I'll let her leave the moment as long as it doesn't affect-," Stefan contraindicated, enjoying with astonishing unscrupulousness his composed speech. "Adrian, look at this!" He said, uncharacteristically alarmed as seizing, evanescent shades of feeling cursed through his body.

"Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital is currently on lockdown and all the patients, except for those in critical stare, were transferred to other units. It appears a psychotic patient, armed with a gun, managed to take hostages members from the hospital staff as well as innocent patients. Within the people declared missing, Robert Chase, head of Diagnostic Medicine and his daughter were reported missing. The situation remains hostile since a shot was reported and the Special Forces are currently negotiating," The stern, implacable voice of the reporter announced, every curve of her features seemed to express a fine, arrogant acrimony and harsh truculence.

"She could be hurt or in great danger," Adrian concluded, everywhere feeling the bountiful fragrance of death.

"What do we do?" Stefan asked, his propelling expectation darkening into anxiety.

"I think for now, we can only wait," Adrian advised, temporarily collected and calm, exquisitely stung with the thought of warring instinct.

The day seemed to dallying in maudlin regret, the crisp sparkle of the pouring rain refusing to signal rebirth, but oppositely, distinct tension.

The curtains of opaque rain came into view, the atmosphere shifting into metamorphosing mourning and sorrow, cultivating the zeal of bad.

* * *

Marked out for some strange, pre-natural doom, the lockdown seemed to be scintillating the pure will. It was merged in a sentiment of unutterable sadness and compassion, many heartless misgivings of grave kind appeared. They seemed harmless, comically threatening, but their magnanimity proved an insatiable power and managed to still the action.

Ashley's erratic breathing broke the insidious tranquil, the jargon of her sobs molding the outside attitudes into deferential caring and forcing the austere hand of the gunman to consider her tiny, failing body being torn in minuteness of flesh.

"Stay with me! Just don't close your eyes!" Chase pleaded desperately, trying to stop the fathomless blackness from conquering his daughter's vision. The bullet had perfectly penetrated her left knee, a vinyl purple bruise framing the wound as rivers of blood gushed out. He was aware of the enormousness of essential fluid she had already lost and brutally ripped the lace hem of his shirt and bandaged carelessly the deeply staggered injury.

"It-it hurts so badly," Ashley's sobs only worsened the situation, as her moods of malicious reaction and vindictive recoil progressively sweeping away the only drops of hope.

"I know, dear, but you'll make it through," Chase said, soothingly, caressing few rebellious strands and watching her flint-blue retina. "Focus on something that seems comforting," He could only muster, obsessed with the modishness of minutes passing by and lively will escalating out of her rhythmically shaking body.

Ashley's eyes were dry and raw, the scarlet, ardent color of the peripheries signaling the negativity grazing her thoughts and inner control. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that, have been so direct."

"Don't blame yourself, you were right and all that matters now is you to calm down," Chase comforted promptly, masking his own mental breakdown, but always remembering to show occasional flashes of tenderness and love to ensure that the fight was far from being ultimately lost.

They were the infallible union, conveying to survive in front the palpable rage of the fate and to trespass the incident with unharmed souls.

"Hey, you two stop with the melancholy there before I-," The attacker threatened methodically, reaching halfway of the sentence before utterly collapsing. In his back, there was visible only a simple tranquilizer, plaudits of unlettered mob taking over the peace, which was seemingly unnatural.

"The attacker is down, we have free way to the hostages," A hoarse voice announced, the resonance of his words penetrating every sensitive layer of exposed skin and reached the deep cavities.

Pervasive stillness and rushed steps, almost unrealistically quick-willed, wrapped everyone in a mantle of content and shook their integrity in the gruesome scene. Chase wasted no time and picked up Ashley, who forcefully struggled between darkness and light, and ran to the first floor where the vital aid was impatiently waiting. Chase was pelted with an interminable torrent of words, most of them pompous, complex medical inquiries. Blood and lymph were plumbing his poignant doubts and unmistakable fears as they remorselessly soaked his cotton, thin shirt.

Ashley's body seemed prematurely tiny and deprived of any rosy pallor, almost as though it had never had the power to assuage the thirst of death.

"I'm so scared, Dad," She whispered, irrevocably broken and hopelessly entwined with mysterious, precipitated recognition of an end. Taking the cue, she drifted into unconsciousness, losing momentarily contact with reality.

Chase stood frozen, feeling the profound and chilling solitude of the spot and nurses alarmingly instructed him to back away.

As he did so, he felt as thought he preened his imaginary wings to a skyward flight where such unbearable pain was non-existent.

 **Author's Note:** Please, don't kill me! We need a little angst and comfort before moving back to fluff! :)


	4. Chapter 4 - Post Mortem

Chapter 4 – Post Mortem

T.V. Show: House MD

Pairing: Chase canon, Major Chase/Cameron

Author: Foxes' Dreams

Summary: Scars are reversible; the cure is always foreseeable for those who wait patiently. Chase has finally found a sure and defiant reason to start rebuilding a changed version of himself despite all the tormenting past secrets that haunt his capturing memory. But, his newly-appeared daughter refused to let him brush near the macabre and somber visions without overcoming their effect. Sequel to "Ticking Clock".

* * *

 _Love is like an hourglass, heart filling up as the brain empties." - Jules Renard_

Chase was poised to agonizingly suffer from defined distance, analyzing and hoping to annihilate the oddly saturation of pressure with vainly composed, ardent thoughts. Quickened and enriched by new, subjective connections with life, he was utterly powerless to intervene, to aid and defeat permanently the restrained grief. The life of a doctor instructed him to be impersonally objective and detached from all the imposing, true feeling the public would show.

A wild whirl of wires engulfed Ashley in a lifeless mummification of sickening white and sense of apocalyptic moves, as her body remained inhumanly motionless. Rehabilitated and restored to dignity, Chase forced himself from bolting forward and modifying the situation, since he wouldn't be able to even stop from atrociously trembling.

The majestic, immense doors opened and Foreman's blank attitude of controlling devotion came into view and rushed to the girl's side, followed strictly, almost uncharacteristically obediently by Cameron, whose restless and sore figure betrayed a moving distress.

Respect forbade downright contradiction and Chase gripped Cameron with unseen force and seldom, rigidly stopping her from advancing and witnessing a scene that would shatter her maternal posture. His masculine arms were draped around her shaking, hurtful shoulders and he couldn't help not thinking about the past, about the adherence of conventionalities.

"Her skin is too pale and cold, she's going into hypovolemic shock, stage two," The fragile voice of a startled nurse announced, her own worry disconcerting in her behavior.

"One unit of AB4 Rh negative, stat! She lost a lot of blood from the bullet. Connect her to an EKG!" Foreman claimed, trying to focus on both life's most issues and the paltry devices beeping incoherently around him.

"She has a narrow gap between the systolic and diastolic pressure and delayed capilatory refill," Foreman later observed, feeling the magnanimity of the case growing impedimentary higher.

"She's going into a tachycardia, already passed 100 beats per minute," The assisting nurse stated, the shrill cry of the frozen monitors signaling another devastating symptom.

"100 mg of Rhythnol," Foreman injected, waiting for an immediate reaction, one that would end the haze of scrupulous morality of conduct.

"Tachycardia is maintaining and her fingers are turning purple," The nurse replied, studying intensely the purple-vaulted tips of Ashley's fingers, set anew in the same recruit of anxiety.

Foreman frowned deeply, the sane outward of ideas turning critical. "She had defined QRS complexes, her heart is going ischemic."

"Get her to surgery now!" The nurse almost shouted, setting all the normalcy and patience at defiance.

"No, we need to stabilize her BP before cutting her open!" Foreman contradicted, the propelling tone of sedentary exclamation ringing through the room, aggravating the panic installed in the parents' hearts.

The nurse challenged, promptly offering ideas, but consequently avoiding the vistas of sylvan horror. "It's a polymorphic VT, it might stop in its own!"

"And we're risking neurovascular damage!" Foreman accused, deathly seriousness lurking in the depths of his eyes and unstable rage danced across his lips.

"Another shot of Rhythnol can make her go into cardiac arrest!" The youngster reminded, curling her lip upwards with defiant scorn and disclaiming the fatigue of a potential fight.

"Then, we're using cardio version. I need paddles now!" Foreman commanded, setting into an action that could easily slip through his stoic fingers. "Charge to 300!" He continued, overlooking the indication of electricity and he definitely felt himself being carried away, on a cloud of reverie, impossible and flushing.

Chase was staring over his shoulders, masking his tumultuous agitation and felt an undercurrent of acidity settling in the pit of his stomach as Cameron's incoherent sobs drastically changed to a mourning state. She was bound to recapture her composure with major difficulty, his frosty calm and embodiment of physical strength keeping her still vertical.

"Charging! Clear!"

* * *

The pure white quickly turned into the game of betrayal and undeniable phantoms, a melody singing lustily as if to exorcise the gloom of diabolic ironies.

Ashley averted her fatigued eyes for a second, still wearing an air of wistful questions and the anguish of sharp and penetrating remorse. She was stricken directly to her soul, already imaging herself dead or at least, promptly dying. She was gripped with a sense of suffocation and panic, and heavily oppressed by a dead melancholy and desire of return. She considered this strangely looking heaven to be a modified kind of purgatory, ready to impose the last premises of death.

"Where am I?" Ashley wondered out loud, feeling herself slipping in the fathomable slope towards extinction.

"In the place where all the materia ends up," A groggy, metallic voice answered behind her, starting even the most riot calmness stored.

"That means I died?" She asked oddly quiet, fighting back an irregular sob that would disengage her thickening plethora of words.

"Only temporary," The debilitated man answered, a slight glimpse showing him atrociously changed, with wrecked clothes and obvious dismay.

"What are you talking about?" She asked again, hopelessly trying to extract the deep significance and set aside the solicitude margin of error.

"Listen to me, Ashley!" The old form half-commanded, relishing the same old remembered memories.

The movement was slow and torturous, but as soon as his cold, lifeless digits gripped her wrist, a cold, soar and acrid seizure metaphorically numbed her.

"Your parents, they need to know," He whispered, dramatizing the plea and exposing both resentment and partial refinement.

"How can you know my parents?" Ashley inquired rhetorically, before ultimately associating the definite portray to real life. "Are you House?" She challenged, witnessing something eminently human beacon from his dull eyes.

"Names are irrelevant. But they need to know I'm sorry," House admitted, enforcing some flash of witty irrelevance.

"Should I believe a misanthrope as you are?" Ashley asked purposefully, something indescribably reckless and desperate motivating her not to believe.

House exhaled a deep-sated sigh, the explanation breaking tyrannously upon his soul. "People do change. People feel pain, and they don't have to go through the same again."

"And you're sorry about..." Ashley prompted the urgent haste of knowing creeping in her tone.

"Just tell them this, they'll know what it's about," House said, looking defeated and eaten alive by the sense of decomposing in after-life.

"But I -" The petite blonde tried again, seemingly sore beset by the pressure of temptation.

"Promise me you'll tell them," He requested again, strenuously gripping her hand harder, to obtain the much needed friction. "It will change your life, too!" House said, the spectacular display of wrath and despair determining a sudden change of heart.

Ashley was stamped into perilous activity, measuring pros and cons, and observing the upcoming gulps of time restoring fates. Stimulated to an ever deepening subtlety, she was finally able to make a decision.

"I promise," She whispered, the stony insensibility and vehement capacities crumbling to her feet and dematerializing instantly. "And they know".

Then, she was stumbling backwards, falling into a mystifying abyss, striding forth imperiously to deliver the message and decipher the subdued passages of obstructed truth.

* * *

One breath, a plethora of tension, subtle indications of great mental agitation were all mingling to compose a horrifyingly ironic time lapse where minutes refused to pass.

"Sinus rhythm is returning to normal," Foreman announced, only half-exhaling and decompressing, knowing the major difficulty was bound to arise. "Page the OR team to perform a plate fixation," He continued, carefully examining the odious swelling around the girl's knee as if he was suddenly overawed by a strange sense of defeat.

He passed near Chase and Cameron, both distraught by the immensity of the forming, dreadful structure, ready to destroy the equilibrium of a family by adding remoteness. Their eyes were bloodshot and oddly lifeless, focused on the tiny body wheeled out from the sterile and impersonal environment.

Cloudily silence brooded over the realm, of little quagmire, but their embrace lasted naturally in catatonic state.

"I'll scrub in for the surgery," Foreman said as he bypassed them, quickly snuffed out in the middle of ambitious schemes, preparing to act behind the closed doors.

Time tends to be an opposite concept. Sometimes, it is the supreme arbiter of conduct, sometime it is the incarnation of unbearable wait and desolateness. Outside the surgical room, suggestions of veiled and vibrant feeling were flying in the air, suffering with two dotted -but separated- parents, awaiting and painfully panting.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let her come with me to the visit, especially when I knew we would see a psycho. I should be in surgery right now, not her," Chase admitted guilty, his voice strangled with quivering remorse and limbs suffered to finality in obscure. He knelt before Cameron's low seat, to maintain the glacial, unifying eye contact.

"It's okay, you don't have to blame yourself," Cameron responded, taking the larger sweeps in the march of mind.

"How can you not be mad? The only thing valuable in your life passed near death," Chase said truthfully, the anguish of spiritual struggle determining him to ask even for the most minuscule details.

"Ashley is so much like you. She can't be kept away from mysterious cases. Even if you had forbidden her to enter, she would have sneaked in when you turned your back. No need to torment yourself for such an incident," The female adult coaxed dryly, exposing a retrospective she badly desired to contract into herself.

"I'll be still feeling miserable until I see my daughter safe and conscious," Chase muttered, expressing the exact same level of concern. "I wish you had told me about her sooner," He spoke out loud, relishing the way terror filled the most remote parts of his brain with riot.

"It wouldn't have changed anything between us," Cameron stated coldly, mercilessly, tethered to earth by the accelerated pace of the confessions.

"But I could-" He prompted, losing contact with reality as his deepest wounds were being enlarged by the affluent of changes.

Steps arose in the quiet stillness of the corridor, mirroring a swiftly darkened air, and finally presenting Foreman, in the allurements of seriousness and lamento.

"What's happening?" Chase asked, despair of knowing conquering rationality.

"Surgery is almost finished, and Ashley seems stable," Foreman said, partly revealing the medical anecdotes.

"Unfortunately, the damage was greater than expected. The bullet fractured her proximal tibia and the lesion spread to her patella. The lasting effect can go from soft tissue damage to neurovascular damage and even long-term arthritis. We'll know more when she'll wake up," He said, the air oddly filled by fugitive strains of old differentials.

"And her heart?" Cameron asked, the pulsating blood materializing in the reddish nuance of her high cheekbones.

"Her BP is stabilized, but we are still waiting for the anesthesia to pass in order to run some more tests," Foreman clarified, dissolving another implacable approach of doom.

"She will be transferred to NICU immediately after the surgery is finished," He concluded, the babble of formality growing audible and unjustly placed between the old triad of issue-resolving intelligence.

The blandishments of convincing time and power of register seemed to torment Chase continuously as the waiting extended into eternity.

"I could have helped you. A family for me was the only thing I could wish for and there was no way I would have let you go," He announced, breaking the sterile odor with meaningful thoughts, capable of reversing the action.

"We were separated, Robert. And it was the rational thing to do, after all. Knowing you there just because I was pregnant would just make matters worse," Cameron answered sternly, the spell of ideals and hopes was straightaway vanished.

"We would have figured it out, split time, custody, but there was always a way to make things brighter," Chase contraindicated, the blinding, surreal mist transcending all his spoken words.

"And what's the point in discussing it right now?" Cameron asked bitterly, consequently implying a further debate.

"We need to clarify everything, sooner or later," He justified, the chill of forlorn old age sinking in his heart.

"We'll sort things out, alongside with our daughter when she is apt to understand and decide," Cameron figured silently, the chivalrous homage of respect brightening momentarily the shift of tension.

Foreman's face seemed eloquent with worry, the day becoming even more vociferous and redolent. The upcoming conversation was going to be desultory, only a bunch of irrelevant, statistic information would be shared.

"She's still unconscious, even though the effect of the anesthesia passed. This isn't a major concern for now," The dean said soothingly, as if he was vainly trying to cover the debilitating condition.

"She could have irreversible brain damage and it isn't the principal issue?!" Cameron shrieked, the deep tranquility of her shaded attitude crumbling, leaving space only for unrealistic assumptions.

"Allison, we both know that's the worst scenario and only time can tell if it becomes a reality," Foreman assured simply, the stately procession of informing becoming progressively labyrinthine.

Chase's masculine palm travelled to her shoulder almost possessively and authoritatively in order to depose the deep, dimly-known grief.

"Unfortunately, her level of haptoglobin and transferrin are crashing rapidly," Foreman complied, the deep flush of crimson ebbing out on his impersonal face.

"So give her a transfusion!" Cameron half-shouted again, shuddering under the intensity of reproved distrust.

"Ashley's blood type is AB4 and her Rh is negative, rarest combination in the world. And the hospital's resources can't cover another unit," He continued, the demerit of an unworthy alliance of bad luck and karma overwhelming him.

"I have the same blood type, I can give her a direct transfusion," Chase said forcefully, the dreamy solicitations and indescribable afterthoughts propelling him to involve into the act of rescue.

"Then, let's put you in to donate blood," Foreman responded, the earth around him gaining sudden sense and looked utterly despoiled of any negativity.

Vistas of shadowy figures still wandered around, but the golden gloom of present was growing animated. Chase's moves were uncharacteristically numbed while donating the vital lymph, his mind was conquered by images of his daughter, the general effect being of lavish profusion.

* * *

The gray air rang and rippled with lark music as seconds never ceased to pass, leaving space for the golden riot of the sun to die and get reborn repeatedly and steadily.

"I tried to tell you," Cameron admitted suddenly, the grimace of self-absorption in the pit of regret consuming her neutrally.

Chase looked enigmatically confused and inarticulately processed the haunting phrase that leaped to his mind. "What do you mean?"

"I called you a week after Ashley was born," Cameron answered promptly, avoiding his perching gaze and focusing vainly on the registered slumber of her daughter.

"What made you change your mind?" Chase asked, forcefully fearing the repercussions such a magnitude-filled question might infuse.

"I telephoned the Diagnostic Department and got House on the line instead," Cameron declared, the loquacity of a confession making her almost powerless to talk. "Anyway, after a short conversation, he started telling me about how much you started to enjoy single life and non-commitment," She continued, oddly putting into her words the indefinable yearning for days long gone.

"I admit I was in a dark phase at that moment," The male adult said, ashamed of his own intercepted decision he scarcely remembered making.

"He told me you might not even want to hear about her, after all the pain I've caused you. I would have wrecked you even more," Cameron justified, covering the immensity intrusion with the mask of glassy influence.

"Allison-" He engaged, matching the emerald of her wide eyes. "I would have turned my life upside down for our daughter," He replied, the irrevocable past and uncertain future mixing just as mess of ideologies.

"He convinced me your priorities have changed, more important were the nightly escapades," Cameron started, taking a fresh gulp of oxygen, "that you were somehow still haunted by the Dibala incident," She concluded, sensing the leaden sky resting heavily on the earth as a toiled, but relieved layer.

"What I did cost me a family. I deserved it entirely and all the pain afterwards. But, for you, for Ashley, I would have given up the worst version of myself," Chase stated calmly. "I just couldn't lose both of you," He said, ignoring the loud and urgent pageantry of life.

Time stood painfully still, striking relentlessly seconds and yielding the solemnity. Miraculously, Cameron's face barely lit up, exposing a cracking, inconsistent chagrin.

The majestic lights of the ruby horizon bathed them into gloom, until the spell was broken by a guttural groan. Ashley's arm twitched nervously, her body seized to move, breathing in the meticulous observations of facts. The multiplicity of stimuli competed for attention, but in earnest, her mental instinct guided her towards the most servile self-protection and awareness.

"Hey! How are you feeling, little one?" Chase asked soothingly as soon as he reached her wrinkled beside, immensely longing to admire her angelic features. He took her petite hand in his own, transmitting the vividness and onrush of life towards her energy-deprived systems.

"House says he's sorry," Ashley said, the murmur of her ragged voice booming into melancholic mockery and consequential importance.

Then, their lives full of convictions started to shatter.

 **Author's Note:** Between tests and exams, here comes another chapter, the last one before the big epilogue.

Read and Review! :*


	5. Chapter 5 - Honeymoon

Chapter 5 - Honeymoon

T.V. Show: House MD

Pairing: Chase canon, Major Chase/Cameron

Author: Foxes' Dreams

Summary: Scars are reversible; the cure is always foreseeable for those who wait patiently. Chase has finally found a sure and defiant reason to start rebuilding a changed version of himself despite all the tormenting past secrets that haunt his capturing memory. But, his newly-appeared daughter refused to let him brush near the macabre and somber visions without overcoming their effect. Sequel to "Ticking Clock".

* * *

 _Love is like an hourglass, heart filling up as the brain empties." - Jules Renard_

The music of a fatalistic presence was singing a swift melody in mellow golden sun, being evoked strangely powerful. The murmur of soft winds could be heard in the proximity of the horizon, the mute, but melancholic landscape serving the forming intensity.

"How can you stay so calm and collected? Our friend might be dying," Stefan shrieked loudly, humming only the bitterness and the steady accusations. Moments passed, marching an epoch of illusions.

"Panicking and wandering around the room isn't going to be helpful, either way," Adrian contraindicated, the conviction that the outpourings of evil wouldn't affect his immediate friend.

"We need to get to the hospital!" The taller actor imposed, the invidious stigma of incapability striking him completely.

"Stefan, it's impossible for us to even get in the area as long as they restricted access," His companion argued again, fragments of the syllables spoken accentuated making his voice break audibly.

"I can't just sit down and pray for a miracle!" Stefan half-shouted, the major incident seemed to be still throbbing with significance.

"I totally get you. Keep in mind that we don't know if she was caught in the ambush. Maybe she and her father managed to escape in the meantime," Adrian suggested, ignoring the unscrupulous enemy of space and time.

"Highly unlikely," Stefan huffed lightly, the meticulous observation of facts dragging him indecisively towards negativity.

"Princeton Plainsboro Hospital was declared out of danger. The assaulter was finally defeated by the Special Forces and after a brief statistic, there was only one victim whose wounds are rapidly healing. Therefore, the traffic has been unblocked and the hospital is slowly getting back to its own rhythm," The front news announced aloud, the past, filled with doubts and uncertainty, was finally drifting off, clearing the space.

"That's our chance!" Stefan declared, hurriedly grabbing his enlarged backpack and striding towards the parting crimson glory of the sunset.

"Let's go!" Adrian completed ultimately, mirroring his sequence of irregular movements.

The panorama of life rolled consequently before them, the pendulous feelings of grief disappearing as optimism finally took form.

* * *

The presage of disaster was in the air, moving towards hallucinating enormity and panic. The intolerance and pristine issue seemed unbearable, dismembering body and soul.

Ashley was soon captured by a deep, though restless slumber, the pith and sinew still throbbing mercilessly inside her veins. Outside the reserve, an intense debate was prepared to unfurl and affect.

"Foreman, she's hallucinating about our dead mentor," Cameron stated drastically, the quick pulse of gain confusing her continuously.

"All the neurological tests were normal, so maybe it was just an image flashing before her eyes while she was drifting away," Foreman answered, the restlessness of an offended labyrinth consuming him entirely.

"Or maybe it's a message. There are studies about people being on the margin of death and meeting dead people with regrets to transfer back our world," Chase proposed as reason, the room instantly catching a solemn and awful quietude.

"Another life-lesson we got from him," Foreman admitted, the scars of rancor and remorse concerning the past destiny making him humanly vulnerable.

"House will dominate even through death," Chase prophetically said, the sadness in him deepened inexplicably and a mercy expression buffeted his face.

His eyes were symbiotically projected to the motionless, heavily-breathing and curled figure. The secret and subduing charm of their bond was still oddly alive, supporting only genuinely. He was condemned to endure the sheer weight of unbearable loneliness, until Ashley's flint-blue eyes would be responsive again.

Then, an ominous and uncomfortable silence of wait fell.

* * *

The shadows of the late night seemed to retreat in darkness and the shiver of the dusk passed fragrantly down the area of the hospital. Silence grew stolid throughout the hours; the day seemed to be perfumed with mossy, dead flowers.

The shiver of apprehension passed Ashley's body as she stood upright, genuinely stressing the metal cast of epic proportions. Her face was distressed, the steadfast catastrophe obscurely keeping the strangest thoughts of regret simmering into her.

Chase walked into the narrow unit, the strident discord of horridness making him almost completely numb. The suspicion of a positive destiny blazed torridly within him as he sauntered to place himself on the very edge of the hospital bed.

Ashley's face remained neutral, the swinging pendulum of angst and calm consuming her mercilessly. "I'm so sorry," She whispered brokenly, releasing the swelling tide of traumatic memories.

"Please, don't cry! This is entirely my fault," Chase reassured her, spiritually comforting her in the tender grace of an embrace. "I should have never agreed to visit exactly a psychotic patient," He continued, the arch of struggling tears and sickening regrets blinding him momentarily. He blamed himself for endangering an innocent and pro-active soul, which has the effusion of regenerating at its side.

"I should have shut up and take everything as it was," Ashley sobbed incoherently, the tumult in her heart growing wilder and more irresponsive. "I was just so insensitive and -" She augmented thoroughly, the tune of self-depreciation pulsing within her alive flesh.

"You did this to defend me, to protect me, and that's important. You did an honorific gesture," Chase said in return, the vacant fields of gratitude looked blankly vast. "God, I was so scared for you there. I'm so glad you're here, alive," He reasoned further, the very pulsation of his affection growing immensely.

"I couldn't have missed all the future you've promised me, Dad," Ashley said dearly, the wide horizon was suddenly flamed by the gush of optimism.

"For all the years to come, I promise you," Chase guaranteed continuously, the wild winds of sobbing dismay disappearing as a flash of peace seized him. He kept his arm around his daughter's shoulders, the enchanting beauty of the girly figure overtaking ephemerality.

The wind was in high frolic with the outside rain, mockingly echoing Foreman's decisive steps only heartbeats after.

"Sorry to interrupt, but this is really important," He introduced formally, as though life itself depended on the zenith of the announcement. "Your comeback to the living was quite miraculous, but that can be reasoned by the transfusion given by your father," He started relating, purposefully winnowing the plighted bond.

"You gave me your blood?" Ashley asked incredulously, a dim of haze of surprise overtaking her.

"I would have done anything to see healthy and conscious," Chase admitted, his fatherly qualities rising to the heat of enthusiasm.

"There's negative part, too, unfortunately. The extended fracture will need at least a month to heal, and then I recommend physiotherapy, in order to regain full mobility. The sessions should last no more than three months," Foreman stated coldly, showing just a timid glimpse towards the upcoming obstacles. There was no menace in the night's silvery calmness, the news were becoming increasingly phantasmagorical and turbid.

"We can heal together," Ashley proposed, vastly similar connections to the past events woke up in Chase the feeling of motivation, of annihilating demons.

Thought shook both of them into poignant pictures, trouble momentarily gathered on Chase's brow as he was overwhelmed by haunting illusions, but he vowed to subdue them in eternity.

He just needed to see the mass of blonde curls resting heavily on his chest, to draw elusive and mastering power.

* * *

The rays of the moon became pearly, indolently caressing as fatigue and prominent, listless sorrow overwhelmed the waiting room, where two living souls were poised to survey the calm, stable breathing of their common relative, fighting to defeat the everlasting, dull pain. They were clustered to avoid speaking, excruciatingly bypassing the implications of a meaningful debate, one that would unleash the feverish tide of the past.

They were sitting dangerously close, the tottering consistency of peace they learned to disgrace, was fated to get destroyed.

"So, she's okay? Only a few months of physio and she'll be well?" Cameron asked incredulously, the intents and purposes of amaze never stopping to pass within her.

"Foreman said all the tests came back good, and she'll regain full mobility," Chase responded, fixing his eyes on a mundane object, tossing the line disdainfully and lazily from his lips.

"That's a miracle! And she is already conscious and energetic," Cameron stated, the transcendental surprising her inner self strongly.

"It seems that comes from my transfusion. Blood ties are always the greatest," The adult physician explained, mirroring reflexively Foreman's words, inflecting in them his own, bewildering pride.

"You really have the connection. No one can deny it now," Cameron reasoned, the cloak of prim pretense lacing her words. She spoke the sentence with boring monotony, vainly suppressing any kindness and candor she might inflict.

"It's the same we had years ago," Chase said calmly, the ambitious craft of the old days mesmerizing him. It was a long shot, a dimly lit chance to hang to.

"Robert, please don't go back there again," Cameron pleaded gently, the unutterable sorrows of the past darkening her eyesight. She was still caged in the illusion of unreality where everything would magnificently disappear without much strong consideration.

"Yes, I am," Chase stated uncharacteristically strong, invoking the days of vague and fantastic melancholy. "Tell me, who sleeps with the divorcing person and risk a pregnancy unless they still have feelings?" He asked rhetorically, exposing the obvious truth which stayed inactive for culminating decades.

"We were both vulnerable when we signed the divorce papers. It was a mistake, I never imagined I would get pregnant only after one time!" She attacked forcefully, disfigured the jeopardy of feelings, mixed at the time, and inconclusive at the moment.

"You're a doctor! You know such things can happen at any time," Chase imposed an undeniable truth. "Did you do it on purpose?" He continued powerfully, obviously determined to shade light on the cold touch of unjust suspicion.

"I just wanted to have you, one last time," Cameron confessed, exposing her genuine feelings hidden under the pretty insolence.

"But you've never tried to return," Chase prompted again, exploring the primrose path to any applicable theory.

"Only I know how many times I wanted to walk on my pride and come back. Only I know how many times I cried knowing she'd grow up without a father!" Cameron half-shouted, disguising the big confession as the chill, critical impartiality.

"Now she has one," Chase retorted quickly, measuring the miserly measure he must have inflicted.

"This time I will let you connect as you should have," Cameron sensitively posed. "And I'm speaking about a real family," She clarified, leaving space for only happiness, combined with the distraction of enchantment.

Diverting her eyes from the external show of gratitude, she pondered the idea of showing much more will, much more dedication towards a real family. Doubts still beset her lonely and daring soul, which was doled out of resentments, but for once, she was completely ready to escape the cage of her own mental limit.

* * *

Stefan, drifting along the tide of fancy and Adrian, drowned in deep reticence, were running along the slightly crowded hallways of PPTH, endearing manner tracking both of them. The sight offered by Ashley's private room almost symbolized the nightmare of drowsiness coiled insidiously.

"Hey! We've heard what happened. Are you okay?" Stefan asked directly, skipping the dull formality and the endlessly shifting moods.

"Yes, I'm good now. The worst passed," Ashley whispered, conducingly focusing on the astonishing size of the cast.

"Is your leg seriously injured?" Adrian asked seriously, reversing the conversation back to its usual, compulsory rationality.

"Fractured only, but I have to attend physical therapy for at least a few months," She responded tiredly, the fastidious crochets of the previous actions repeating many times in her mind.

"Ouch! That sounds a little painful," Stefan exclaimed with his warred, comical instinct.

"I'm referring strictly mentally. Are you okay?" Adrian inquired, the expectation of an answer quickly darkening into personal anxiety.

"Yes, everything is alright. It matters that everything passed and I remained unharmed," Ashley wholeheartedly responded, the fragrance of familiarity seemingly calming her.

"We are so glad you're well. We've been death scared," Stefan stated sincerely, feeling the manner they were fatally and indissolubly united.

"Mind some company?" Adrian suggested, his voice betraying the collocation of exaltation as his bag landed ungracefully on the close chair.

"I would like you here, I'm kind of lonely and I think both my parents are sound asleep," Ashley confessed, the fine precision of intent and convinces lacing her outspoken words.

"Let's settle in!" Stefan goofily exclaimed, the forever echo of loving proximity leaping into his tight chest.

Chase entered the room somehow fearfully and sleepily, unaware of the group of tight friends, reunited after the formless and hysterical events. He was verbally confused, his integrity of soul forever damaged.

"Oh, yeah, guys, he is my father who I've been talking about," Ashley started quite awkwardly, the vague longing of the meeting possessing her. "Dad, those are Stefan and Adrian, my childhood friends," She continued, the refinements of formality creeping in her voice.

"Nice to meet you!" A choir of rigid voices answered, feeling the implications of such an unexpected meeting.

"This is a remark I have the obligation to make," Chase started caustically, moving to stand between the two, slightly frightened teenagers. "Keep in mind, guys, that if you lay a finger on my daughter, I'll make sure I touch you, too," He concluded, the majestic tenderness and satisfaction cracking his smile.

"For God's sake! Dad, you're embarrassing me!" Ashley warned playfully, feeling herself guilty of girlish sentimentality.

"It's my duty, dear. If I didn't play overprotective father at least once, then I would be incomplete," Chase replied comically, shifting from disfiguring seriousness to irony.

Fragments of most touching melody steeped in the suddenly small room, putting adrift the lethal combination of bleeding wounds and grieving hearts.

The stillness of the hallway seemed to be ironically hardened into convictions and resolves, and the air was half-suffocating because of adroitly shifting ground. Chase stood outside the occupied reserve, the haunting recess of memory keeping him slightly at ease.

* * *

"I wanted kids with you," Cameron said dryly from behind him, condensing the intimate speech."But I've never meant for that to happen during lockdown. It was the irony of fate, after all. Or maybe just a coincidence," She continued, constantly amplifying her justification.

"House would tell you coincidences do not exist," Chase responded, invoking the philosophical thesis of their old mentor. "And I wanted everything with you," He confessed impersonally before standing up and conversing to colorless fluency as he maintained certain distance.

Cameron's penetrating, confused stare pervaded the hollow ring of her life, officially putting her in distress.

* * *

Reduced to plain, tern cardboards of takeout and uncontrollable laughter, the situation seemed at ease, the tension was finally bowed into submission.

"She's the only person crazy enough to cut open a frog just to prove she's right," Stefan stated clearly, drinking in the spirit of contemptible amusement as throaty laughter promptly erupted.

"And the only one determined enough to stay at school over hours to work on some weird IT program," Adrian added, the grim scowl of own entertainment lacing his words.

"In conclusion, nobody is as passionate as she is," Chase stated in a buffoonery and proud manner, feeling the ironic rebound of the others' comically harsh and filled with truculence phrases.

"I know I'm special, what can I say?" Ashley responded, sinking in the same puerile game, which seemed quite appealing to the intellect.

"You get that from me, remember that," Chase said, easily jumbling the odd resemblance while he listened greedily and gazed intently.

"And everything else is still from you," Ashley reminded, gloriously laughing away the problem of compatibility, both physical and mental.

"But you are as stubborn as -" Chase started, lending no prattle to the insatiable countenance and holding his breath as the window door flew open.

Cameron was standing in the doorway, phantomly placated by the loathsome and metamorphosing enterprise of time. She has never wore an argument to totters, she used to let the crumbling details live.

"Hey, can we talk outside for a moment?" She asked, shambling away with speed the question.

"What's up?" Chase asked unguardedly as soon as they were out of the possible, audible sight.

"Our daughter came back from unconsciousness thanks to your transfusion. She is a happier person since she met you, talks even more, tells me all the details. Her life has drastically changed," Cameron confessed, suppressing any sign of surprise, since the threaded labyrinth was already known.

"Allison, I-" Chase stumbled, surrendering himself to gloomy thought as he tried to anticipate what was yet to occur.

"We can heal together! I needed only fifteen years and a trauma to realize where I'm meant to be, just once and for all, I'm sure!" Cameron stated uncharacteristically forcefully, dissolving the entangled paradox and allowing herself to give into immediate passion.

Her ardent lips collided instantly on his, and within fastidious moments, they were both wrapped in writhed wrap where even the outside world was nonexistent and the haunting or begirt presences were muted into eternity. They would fall back into the oldest melancholy, the grandiloquent love replacing the bittersweet, passing sorrow.

Ignoring the harmony of erratic gasps, Ashley felt her eyes growing limpid and indulged by truthful candor, the glow of inspiration and resolve taking haughty, vigilant steps alongside with an unspoken anecdote.

 _I told you, House_

 **Author's Note:** Happy birthday to me! And the best way of celebrating it is getting CC back on track! :)

Read and Review! :*


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